Do you want to improve your CRM? Smart It can help:

Forming and maintaining relationships with customers is one of the most important aspects of any business. It is difficult to thrive in any industry without positive customer relationships, and long-term success can be jeopardized. That’s why it is so important to introduce a customer relationship management (CRM) system into your business.

Let’s discuss the basics of the smart-it CRM system, the benefits, functions and some guidelines for setting it up.

Function
The primary purpose of the smart-it CRM is to streamline all major areas of customer interactions. This includes; managing contacts, setting appointments, monitoring a marketing campaign, handling customer service, and numerous other tasks.

The CRM makes use of analytical and reporting tools to provide you with an overall view of operations. By spotting patterns and identifying trends, it puts you in control, so customer interactions can run efficiently.

Some of the major benefits of utilizing smart-its CRM functions are:

Task Tracking
Meeting deadlines is very important in today’s business world. By inputting information like scheduled appointments and important tasks, it takes the guesswork out of project management. smart-it also allows this data to be synchronised with Outlook to keep you informed of required contact with clients.

For instance, if you have scheduled a sales call with a valuable lead, smart-it will remind you to make the call. Consequently, you can make customers feel more confident in your efficiency and build solid relationships.

This way you can manage all of your tasks while ensuring that each customer gets the attention they need and nothing is forgotten.

View at http://www.smart-it.co.za/help/customer-conversations.htm

Sales Rep Management
If you have assembled a team of sales reps, it’s important to keep tabs on their progress and know just how effective they are at following leads and closing sales.

Using the smart-it CRM system will provide a detailed look into each team member’s sales statistics. Including information like task completion time and conversion rate. You can then reward the top performers and coach individuals needing some extra help.

Your sales department will function like a well-oiled machine in a very short space of time and sales will be maximized.

View at http://www.smart-it.co.za/help/sales_pipeline.htm

More Selling Opportunities
It is a proven fact that more sales opportunities will arise when information on customer activity is accumulated. By tracking the customers buying patterns you can source the correct stock and market more efficiently.

View at http://www.smart-it.co.za/help/classification.htm

When launching new products similar to a customer’s preferences you can contact them to inform them. Consequently, this makes it possible to increase sales without having to constantly advertise to new customers.

By capitalizing on an existing customer base, you can get more repeat sales while keeping customers happy.

View at http://www.smart-it.co.za/help/stock_turnover_-_analysis_tab.htm

Bulk Communication
Staying in contact with your clients is essential. Personalising messages for your clients can be very time consuming. With smart-it, personalised bulk emails and sms’s with the customer’s name can be sent with ease, while making them feel special.

View at http://www.smart-it.co.za/help/contacts–bulk-email–sms.htm

To Conclude
Use smart-it for the CRM functions in your business to ensure you give your business that extra edge. Feel free to contact any of our smart-it consultants to assist you in getting the best out of smart-it.

Inventory Purchase Planning

Good inventory control is critical in ensuring an adequate level of stock is on hand for the amount of sales being generated. Having too much inventory (or the wrong type) during certain periods can slow your cash flow and reduce profits with too many markdowns. On the other hand, if you under buy and miss sales opportunities, then you are not making your potential profit

Business owners pay close attention to inventory as it makes up a large portion of the expense in the business. Inventory planning requires forecasting future needs to determine how much inventory should be on hand to meet consumer demand. The smart-it Purchase planning module does this with a high proportion of accuracy.

How can smart-it help you with your purchase planning?  

The Purchase planning system in smart-it will suggest reorder quantities according to manual re-order levels or by calculating quantities based on previous sales over a pre-determined period using regression analysis to determine sales trends,  while taking the suppliers lead time into account. There is a forecast accuracy indicator to show the reliability of the forecast. An added money saving feature is the ability for the user to select from multiple supplier price lists to order from the supplier with the best purchase price.

Client feedback on Purchase Planning:

‘486 stock items needed to be ordered. When I order these items from ‘Supplier A’, the price will be R2663745. When I order the same items from ‘Supplier B’, the price will be R2354759. But when I use the purchase planning function in smart-it, where I choose the cheapest supplier, the new purchase price drops to R2297442, a saving of R57317

For this to work effectively, you would need to import your supplier’s price lists and link your stock items to the respective suppliers. It is hard work, but it will pay off.

• smart-it saves time on inventory planning and control functions.
• smart-it allows you to focus more time on sales, increasing your company’s profitability.

Follow this link for how to use the purchasing planning in smart-it, or contact one of our consultants to assist you in managing your purchase planning on 087 802 2018

http://www.smart-it.co.za/help/purchase_planning.htm

The Benefits of Having an e-commerce Website

Getting an e-commerce website is an effective way to increase your sales, reduce your operating costs and increase profit margins. Become part of the R4.4 billion online shopping sector in South Africa that is projected to grow at 30% a year.

There are millions of people searching for and buying products and services on the internet every day. While e-commerce is definitely growing in South Africa, it still isn’t as advanced as abroad, because many business owners are still sceptical about the whole idea. Not to mention what a mission it seems like to create an e-commerce website and to upload all your products. What many people don’t realise is that Smart-It is here to make it easy for you.

Smart-it has the ability to interface with Prestashop, a leading e-commerce platform used by over 200 000 online stores. In Smart-It you can add full descriptions, categories, size, colour, & style combinations, as well as product features and multiple pictures. This can then all be uploaded from your Smart-It system to your website at the click of a button. This allows one source of data for your products, saving huge amounts of work and time. Web orders are imported into Smart-It as sales orders.

There are just too many advantages for integrating an e-commerce system to ignore it’s value to your business.

Here are the main ones.

1. Extended Reach

An e-commerce website reaches a national and international audience. Smartphones and tablets have increased the time that consumers spend online.

2. Available 24/7

No staff required to be open for business 24/7.

3. Enhanced Customer Experience

Give consumers the ability to research and buy products and to enhances their shopping experience with you. Reduce the time and effort in the buying cycle to make sales.

4. Convenience

It’s all about convenience and saving time. Who wouldn’t want their shopping delivered to their door.

You are already using Smart-It, so what are you waiting for? Let us help you start your own e-commerce website at an affordable price.

Contact us today!
wentzil@smart-it.co.za